City Council Regular Meeting

Shinaberryclerkmotion passed unanimously we'll go on to public thank you our first public hearing is a public hearing and council action on proposed amendments to the code of the city of Fairfax chapter 110 in parents zoning to amend portions of those articles and sections contained therein including zoning districts and regulations site development standards and definition definitions relating to urban agriculture I'll recognize Eric Foreman the city plan to provide a staff presentation

Eric ForemanstaffOkay, thank you very much. Good evening. Tonight's agenda item is a public hearing for a series of zoning text amendments pertaining agriculture establishments these amendments would add this as a permitted use in the city's owning ordinance there we go and specifically would add urban agriculture as a commercial use in the ordinance city council held a general discussion about commercial urban agriculture back in June and at that meeting council asked staff to draft amendments in order to permit urban agriculture in our city's commercial zones. The Planning Commission and City Council both held work sessions on this series of amendments in July and the Planning Commission formally initiated the series of amendments at

And this seems to be a use that would be complementary to Fairfax. It also fits within the city's comprehensive plan goals of diversifying our commercial sector and supporting regionally grown food. You may recall this slide from our work session. I think some kind of an explanation is helpful here, and especially for folks who have not watched our previous meetings on urban agriculture. Urban agriculture, as we're discussing it, is basically the process of commercially cultivating agricultural products in an indoor environment. So being indoors means that it's essentially a controlled environment, And among other things, it means fewer negative externalities than what's typically associated with agriculture.

And that's why this is something that can be well-suited to commercial areas. There's a number of names for indoor agriculture and its processes. It goes by several different names. The illustration here on the bottom right is a very simplified diagram of hydroponics. That's one of the more common types of urban agriculture. Hydroponics involves growing plants in a nutrient solution rather than in soil. And when this is done on a commercial scale, it looks something like the setting on the top right. The reason for showing these images really is to just give an overall idea of what commercial urban agriculture can be in practice. And again, this is a relatively new type of use. defined right now in our zoning ordinance there there are a few forms of agriculture that are

currently permitted within the city principally non-commercial agriculture non-commercial agriculture is considered a normal and customary use in residential zones so that includes backyard gardens also includes community gardens so community gardens you can think of it as gardening for personal use on a group scale or group use or for donation, and all of that is permitted in residential districts. So, for example, here on the City Hall property, we have a 5,000-square-foot community garden, and that's a permitted use because this is a residentially zoned parcel and the garden is not a commercial enterprise. Now, existing zoning ordinances like ours usually need to be amended way to allow for commercial urban agriculture and that is why we're here tonight.

So as we discussed at our work session, a few local jurisdictions have modified their zoning ordinances regarding urban agriculture. Arlington County, Fairfax County, and Vienna have added this use relatively recently to their ordinances. And looking at those examples and other examples nationwide, it's demonstrated that urban agriculture ordinances don't really need to delve into a great amount of detail on the specifics of agriculture or directing the details of this use. It's really a better idea just to use general guidance, which is what we're recommending here as well. And up here on the screen, these are the elements that are included in tonight's amendments that we're looking at. We'll take a look at each of these elements, and as always, everything that we're discussing tonight is in your packets as well.

The first element here is a definition. Definitions are located in Article 9 of our zoning ordinance, and this is obviously important because it describes just what this use is, specifically in the context of the zoning ordinance. And again, we don't need to get terribly detailed in the definition regarding specific operational items, and instead this is a fairly general definition. It's really in two parts. The first part here is shown in green. It's a description of the use, and it reads that urban agriculture, again, as it would pertain to our ordinance is an establishment for the cultivation, retail sales, and distribution of agricultural products where such activity takes place within a fully enclosed structure

or on the rooftop of a structure. The second part here is shown in blue. This provides some examples of urban agriculture methods. The examples here, we see aeroponics, hydroponics, vertical farming. These are all common terms within the industry. This wouldn't be limited to just these, but it serves as a guidance and an explanation for what is meant by this definition. Now to the principal use table. Our principal use table is a table in the zoning ordinance that lists what uses are allowed in which zoning districts. agriculture is proposed to be a separate use it would have its own entry here in the principal use table and and since this use would have relatively few negative externalities again since it's in a controlled environment it's

reasonable to make this a widespread permitted use and the P's indicated on the table indicate a permitted use or by right use it in this table we we have urban agriculture really listed identically as to general retail uses so that is it's permitted in the CR zone CR is the biggest commercial zone as well as the CG and CU zones and also permitted in industrial zones and again this this is this tracks with general retail this is allowed wherever retail is allowed. Now zoning ordinances that allow for urban agriculture tend to have some general use standards associated with the use. These use standards are important for limiting potential negative effects of a specific use. There's a lot of uses in the ordinance that have use standards,

things that could adversely affect neighboring properties or neighboring uses. There are four standards in this amendment that you see here, and since there's just four, I can go over these individually and explain their rationale. The first one, I'll just read number one here. All growing and production activities shall be conducted wholly within a fully enclosed building or on the rooftop of a structure. Most urban agriculture zoning ordinances tend to have a standard similar to this and even like in this case where similar wording is in the definition, it's just an important point to reiterate that production activity for this use needs to take place within specified areas. Number two here relates to the keeping of animals and keeping of animals is a topic

that generated some discussion at both of the work sessions that we had. It's an area where there's little consistency among other zoning ordinances that allow for urban agriculture. They really tend to be all over the place in this regard. Just in our three local examples, the keeping of animals ranges from a strict no in one case, no animals, no insects, and so on, to a permissiveness in some cases to a maybe because it's just not dealt with at all. Now the proposed language that we have here, and I'll just read this, urban agriculture shall not include the keeping of animals except as accessory to the principal use, such as for aquaponics. So I'll explain this a bit. this permits animals as accessory to the urban agriculture use so the principal

is the raising of fish, to permit aquaculture as a principal use. During planning commission's work session, the commission recommended remaining with the language here, reasoning that the raising of fish could bring up issues such as high water consumption and generally suggest a more intensive use than what's contemplated uh under this urban agriculture definition at at this month's public hearing the planning commission recommended approval of the text as presented here meaning no changes to to the text city council discussed this as well at the july work session did not appear to have a consensus some council members expressed a preference to allow the raising of animals and particularly fish

aquaculture as a principal use as part of commercial agriculture. And we can certainly discuss that topic later on as well. I'll move on through the other use standards for now. Number three here concerns waste and odors. Waste and odors can be a potential negative effect of any agricultural process. This use standard stipulates that urban agriculture operators need to control odors that are discernible off-site. This language for number three is identical language to a use standard that we have in the zoning ordinance for animal care facilities. This is kennels and veterinarians, and that's another use that's subject to potential off-site odor problems. This use standard works well for animal care facilities, and this is the same language applied here.

Number four, finally, this last of the four use standards, reads that in commercial districts, for facilities located on the ground floor of a building, 25% of the building frontage associated with the subject use must be dedicated to retail purposes. This is also not uncommon for urban agriculture in commercial areas. Both Arlington County and Fairfax County have some sort of retail requirement in their ordinances. It's a way to ensure that there's a benefit to the public realm from this type of business in a commercial area rather than just a cultivation business that doesn't draw people in as a retail enterprise. It really gives the retail feel that we would look for in a commercial area.

of commercial urban agriculture as a use in the ordinance and as i mentioned there were a few points for additional discussion we we talked about the topic of raising animals we can certainly discuss this more if needed. In case it helps, the picture here, this is a picture of an eel farm, but this is an example of a recently built indoor aquaculture facility. So just to give it an idea of what an enclosed aquaculture, modern aquaculture facility looks like in case it's of Any help that this tends to be typical of the type. Another topic that's been discussed regarding this use involves the potential cultivation of cannabis products. As the draft is written right now, there's no limit on the types of agricultural products that could be cultivated under this use,

and that could potentially include marijuana, but assuming future state legality to do so, which is currently not present. At our work sessions, there was some concern about potential commercial marijuana cultivation under this urban agriculture use. There was not consensus about this, either from Planning Commission or from City Council. This was discussed at the Planning Commission's public hearing two weeks ago. not to limit the cultivation of cannabis or the cultivation of any other crop at this time. Commissioners thought that it's too early to comment on cannabis in this regard. They noted that if or when there's a change to state legislation, that we'd be in a better position as a city to respond to this issue of potential urban agriculture,

That's correct. assuming that the state legislation would change in the future which it may or may not but if it would then a commercial grower could grow cannabis in an urban agriculture situation unless it is excluded first so right it would be proactive the the Planning Commission thought that it was a complicated enough topic that proactive might not be the best approach but that that would that would eliminate the possibility of that

Jon Stehle JrThank you, Mayor Reed. First off, I want to thank the Planning Commission and my colleagues in the dais for a great discussion about figuring out how we start with urban agriculture. I hear that this is an area that's going to continue to evolve. I would like to push for more of an aquaculture lens to it, but I understand the idea of go slow and build forward. So when I read the ordinance, I don't see that there's zero opportunity for some type of fish action or eel action. It's just associated with some growing. So I think there's a way to start the conversation. and then if a future council needs to take a look at it, I think we've at least opened the door from there. I'd be willing to go further tonight, but I feel like we've at least opened the door.

do we need to also then act to deal with it as a city, regardless of whether it's grown in an urban agriculture or in some other fashion that our friends in Richmond who seem to have lots of mystical understanding of the world might decide to do to all localities in Virginia. So I'm comfortable there, but I absolutely hear that concern, and I feel confident that a future council and staff would be able to look at it, but I just wanted to raise that. Thank you, Mayor.

Eric ForemanstaffIt would be permissible. I think the easier approach would be to exclude marijuana from the definition rather than having a two-tiered system with a special use permit for cannabis growing. I don't know. I'm looking to Mr. Lubcom in on this one. Because that may be something we would have to come back with because that would be an entirely separate use. It would be urban agriculture, cannabis.

HardenstaffThank you. And certainly amending the definition of urban agriculture that has been presented to you tonight would be a very easy amendment to make tonight. We could simply add language to the end of that definition that says something to the effect of urban agriculture shall not include the cultivation and production of cannabis or whatever the council may choose. That's certainly a relatively straightforward amendment. Again, I think some of the concern about a special use permit is that also signifies that there's a process for something that isn't permitted currently through state law. And so, again, that's something we could go back and revisit. But certainly very straightforward to make that clear that that is not included in tonight's amendment if that's the desire of the council.

Eric ForemanstaffActually, I'll go ahead and read it, which would be similar to other exclusionary items. in the definition section. So to start out saying that the definition of urban agriculture shall not include establishments that cultivate cannabis. So the only reason is that's similar wording to other definitions that exclude a particular act or product.

Billy BatesThank you. And I've raised this before, but just want to reiterate that we do allow by right establishments that sell alcohol and establishments that sell tobacco and vape products. And now that we're starting this conversation, I'd also encourage us, council and staff, to think about possibly SUP processes for those. I've heard concerns from residents about having tobacco shops nearby. and then additionally I'm happy to support this amendment with or without that exclusion and but I also see this like councilmember Staley as a first step I hope that city staff will continue looking at other ways we can expand opportunities for urban agriculture and for food production more broadly especially nonprofit efforts at food production and I'm happy to support